a medical librarian's adventures in evidence-based living

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June 24, 2009

Tim Kreider Gives Me a "Reprieve" From Fighting House & Yard Entropy. Finding the Sweet Spot Between Workaholic & Slacker. Or If I Want to Smell the Roses, I Better Take Care of Them

I know
intellectually that all the urgent, pressing items on our mental lists
— taxes, car repairs, our careers, the headlines — are so much idiot
noise, and that what matters is spending time with people you love.
It’s just hard to bear in mind when the hard drive crashes.

I've been out-of-town for 11 days, jumping straight back into work and papers are piling up, weeds are growing, roses are getting buggy, baby pictures are in need of printing, boxes in my spare bedrooms have been there for over a year and need emptying!, phone calls need to be returned, there are blog posts I want to write, my upstairs bathroom still needs remodeling, the house needs repair...and it's sunny and gorgeous outside and I just want to enjoy it!

To avoid jumping right into getting things done--which is what I should do--I start out the morning with my favorite procrastination maneuver: browsing the New York Times on my computer. And by some crazy magic--it appears--I spot it--my reprieve from fighting entropy.

"Fourteen years ago I was stabbed in the throat. The point is that after my unsuccessful murder I wasn't unhappy for an entire year.

I’m not claiming I was continuously euphoric the whole time; it’s just
that, during that grace period, nothing much could bother me or get me
down. The sort of horrible thing that I’d always dreaded was going to
happen to me had finally happened. I figured I was off the hook for a
while.

I started brewing my own dandelion wine in a big Amish crock. I
listened to old pop songs too stupid to name in print. And I developed
a strange new laugh that’s stayed with me to this day.

I wish I could recommend this experience to everyone.

It’s one of the maddening perversities of human psychology that we only
notice we’re alive when we’re reminded we’re going to die, sort of the
same way some of us only appreciate our girlfriends after they’re exes.It didn’t last, of course. You can’t feel grateful to be alive your
whole life any more than you can stay passionately in love forever — or
grieve forever, for that matter.

Time forces us all to betray ourselves
and get back to the busywork of living in the world.

Before a year had
gone by the same dumb everyday anxieties and frustrations began
creeping back. I’d be disgusted to catch myself yelling in traffic,
pounding on my computer, lying awake at night wondering what was going
to become of me.

Once a year on my stabbiversary I remind myself that this is still my
bonus life, a free round.

But now that I’m back down in the messy,
tedious slog of everyday emotional life, I have to struggle to keep
things in what I still insist is their true perspective.

I know
intellectually that all the urgent, pressing items on our mental lists
— taxes, car repairs, our careers, the headlines — are so much idiot
noise, and that what matters is spending time with people you love.
It’s just hard to bear in mind when the hard drive crashes.

I don’t know why we take our worst moods so much more seriously than
our best ones, crediting depression with more clarity than euphoria.

It’s easy now to dismiss that year as nothing more than the same sort
of shaky, hysterical high you’d experience after being clipped by a
taxi. But you could also try to think of it as a glimpse of grace.

It’s
like the revelation I had when I was a kid the first time I ever flew
in an airplane: when you break through the cloud cover you realize that
above the passing squalls and doldrums there is a realm of eternal
sunlight, so keen and brilliant you have to squint against it, a vision
to hold onto and take back with you when you descend once more beneath
the clouds, under the oppressive, petty jurisdiction of the local
weather."

This year has been a wild ride. I've seen my mother-in-law die of cancer. I've seen long-time companies collapse. I've seen bad things happen to good people. I've seen friends and family and strangers lose jobs, houses, savings and businesses.

But I've also welcomed my new baby grandson into the world. And a lot of other happy wonderful things, too! The sun still shines, the flowers are blooming, there's still raucous laughter to be shared.

I'm going to get busy on my list of onerous tasks today, and then I'm going to sit on my lawn chair in the backyard, bask in that vitamin-D-healing-sunlight, read a juicy book and take a nap!

There will always be clouds and work. I need to remember to take time for sun and fun while I still can.

Comments

I just wanted to write and thank you for your blog. I am a part-time librarian and full-time mother (this year, more full-time than ever as my husband is a deployed Navy Reserve officer), trying to consistently "eat to live", while keeping the emphasis on "LIVE". I am always overjoyed to see one of your posts in my reader, and they are always an encouragement. I love that I learn so much, all evidence-based, and that your writing is so seasoned with grace and joy.

Re: Photo #1: So, this is what your house looked like a few years ago.

See, you HAVE worked wonders.

I have decided that…in my temporary situation (the summer-off furlough)….I will have three gadabout days and two “at home get things done” days per week. Otherwise I will get mean and nasty. I do manage to get a few things done on the gadabout days, but there is no pressure.

On the “get things done” days I make a list….and then don’t necessarily do the things in that order….somehow I feel like it is more play than work if I do everything in a crazy order.